I can't be trusted around marshmallows

A pet peeve of mine is when news articles make it sound like parents can completely control their children's behaviors by simply saying the right thing. One gift from our children is the lesson that we cannot control everything -  even if we do everything "right." This confounding behavior comes in part from children's low self-control. Even if we tell them not to do something it is very hard for them to stop themselves from doing it anyway.

However children differ in the their abilities to delay gratification, their abilities to fight temptation. Classic research by Mischel and colleagues in the 1960s and 70s outlined a protocol that is often referred to as "The Marshmallow Test." In these studies preschool children were tested individually by a familiar adult experimenter. The child chose a preferred treat (along with marshmallows, animal cookies, pretzels, and other treats were choices) and then the experimenter said that he or she could eat that one piece of treat now, OR wait until the experimenter returned in 15 minutes to get two pieces. The children differed in how long they were able to wait: some only lasted a few moments and gobbled down the single treat; while others distracted themselves or literally sat on their hands until the 15 minutes was up to claim the double treat. Follow-up studies demonstrated that the children who waited the longest grew up to have better grades in school and show other markers of success. This work is still cited today to show the importance of self-control and is sometimes compared to the modern concept of grit.

Through the years some have raised questions about The Marshmallow Test. For example, Duckworth, Tsukayama, and Kirby (2013) asked if it really tests for self-control or if there is a third variable, another quality, that drives both the longer waiting time and higher grades. Based on past research, it could be that children who are higher in intelligence prefer to wait for a larger reward and tend to get higher grades than children who are lower in intelligence. Likewise, children's behavior in The Marshmallow Test and their achievement in school may be reflect how much they are tempted by reward: some children are more tempted by treats while others have little temptation. It may be that children who have low temptation do not have to work very hard to control their impulses - which allows them to wait and to do better in school.

To clarify this issue Duckworth et al. conducted two studies. Study 1 included 56 local 5th graders (average age 10) who participated in a modified version of The Marshmallow Test: the waiting time was extended to 30 minutes and the students completed a survey about what they like eating before the delay of gratification test began. On a separate occasion the children participated in two tests of intelligence, and answered questions related to temptation. The questions addressed: how excited they get when a reward is offered; how actively they seek out the reward; and the extent that getting in trouble impacts them. Teachers rated each child on self-control (as it relates to schoolwork) and reported end of year grades.

The results demonstrated that the children who waited longer were also rated as having more self-control. Although grades were marginally related to waiting time, intelligence and temptation by reward were not related to waiting time in The Marshmallow Test. However, Duckworth et al. note that the children did not differ very much from each other - especially on the variable of intelligence.

Because the first study involved a small sample lacking in diversity, Study 2 analyzed a data set from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development that covered a broader sample of 966 children. These participants had completed The Marshmallow Test at age four (in this version, the experimenter would return after a maximum of seven minutes) and were tested using two age-appropriate measures of intelligence. At that time, their parents and preschool teachers rated them on two measures of self-control: their abilities to concentrate and their abilities to control their behaviors. As well their mothers rated them on their temptation by reward: how excited they became when offered a reward.

When these children were in eighth and ninth grade, the students' grades were included in the data set. In ninth grade the participants also indicated how often they engaged in "risky behaviors" as a measure of impulsiveness.

The results demonstrated that the children who waited longer were higher in intelligence and higher in self control at age four: they received higher ratings on their abilities to concentrate and to control their behaviors. To a lesser extent, children who waited longer were also less tempted by rewards. The authors then used sophisticated statistical methods to separate out the influences of self-control, intelligence, and temptation by reward.

In line with past research, the children who waited longer at age four were more likely to become adolescents with higher grades and fewer reported risky behaviors. Analyses revealed that level of self-control beat intelligence as a better predictor of the associated high grades. However, unlike high self-control, being less tempted by reward did not predict grades or behaviors in adolescence.

Taken together, these studies support the long-assumed notion that The Marshmallow Test is a good test of self-control. Self-control was the most reliable predictor of the higher grades associated with longer waiting times in The Marshmallow Test; intelligence and temptation by reward were less effective or failed as predictors.

We can only assume that Mischel would be pleased with this confirmation that his famous protocol is a valid test of self-control. Considering that he had to wait more than four decades for this news, I would say that he has passed the "ultimate" marshmallow test (too bad he doesn't like the taste of marshmallows)!

Further Reading:

A pdf of the Duckworth et al. (2013) article can be read online courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania.

For an update on Duckworth's work, read "Measuring Students' Self-Control: A 'Marshmallow Test' for the Digital Age", an article by Ingfei Chen for Mind/Shift. Move over marshmallows! Can today's students delay gratification when it comes to video games?

Watch Walter Mischel explain delay of gratification to Stephen Colbert on the comedy news show, The Colbert Report. Very entertaining!

BONUS: If kids totally lose their cool waiting for an extra marshmallow, imagine their reactions to enormous portions of their favorite foods! Watch what happens in this BuzzFeed video:

Getting the gist of sex ed.

In the United States we have higher rates of teen pregnancy than in many other Western countries. We also know that our teenagers are at high risk for STIs, sexually transmitted infections. To combat these problems, we often require teens to participate in sexual education programs. However, the type of program that is most effective is still debated. This week's meme offers a humorous suggestion:

Because even the most mature adult parents can be worn down by incessant crying and endless repetition, the joke implies that if teenagers experienced these things it would be unforgettable and they would abstain from sex. The joke also implies that teaching statistics like, "six week old babies spend 30% of their awake time crying," is not necessary; instead teenagers will remember a take home message like, "babies cry a lot."

This emphasis on gist, or take home message, over specific quantitative facts is applied more formally to sexual education by Reyna and Mills (2014). These authors investigated if concepts from Fuzzy Trace Theory could make a pre-existing sex ed. curriculum more effective. Past research on Fuzzy Trace Theory suggests that better memory of ideas and better decision-making comes from understanding the the gist, the take home message, as opposed to weighing the pros and cons based on detailed facts or figures that are more forgettable. Because these gist-based thoughts are related to one's emotions and values, they allow for very rapid decision-making.

Their experiment followed more than 700 adolescents, ages 14-19, during a 16 session intervention period and for one year after its completion. The participants were randomly assigned to three types of interventions: an existing sexual education program called Reducing the Risk (RTR); a version of Reducing the Risk that had been modified to add ideas from Fuzzy Trace Theory (RTR+); a Control group focusing on communication skills unrelated to sexuality.

Reducing the Risk (RTR) teaches teens how to recognize situations of sexual risk, how to resist pressure to have sex, and how to reduce risk of pregnancy with contraception and infection by using condoms. Teens enrolled in this program should come to realize that they are personally at risk and that they possess the ability to avoid or reduce sexually related risk. The sessions usually include a factual presentation by an adult leader followed by activities such as guided role playing. For example, the leader might present detailed factual data like, "60% of teenagers report that they used condoms during their most recent sexual experience," followed by guided role play of how to reason with a partner who does not want to use a condom. This program is considered to be effective at delaying first sexual experiences and increasing the use of birth control and infection protection. However, Reyna and Mills note that there is little evidence to show if these effects are lasting.

Because Fuzzy Trace Theory predicts that gist thinking should have a lasting effect on decision making, the authors modified RTR with ideas from this theory to create RTR+. This version is identical to RTR with two additions that emphasize gist. First, at the end of every lesson students are presented with one line summaries of the take home ideas of risk from the lesson. For example, "You should use a condom every time you have sex." Second, the participants in RTR+ receive a checklist of possible values, such as, "I will use condoms every time I have sex," that they are asked to rate themselves on after every lesson. Because gist related decision making is closely influenced by our values, asking students to repeatedly clarify their values should also provoke attention to generalized risks related to sex.

All participants' sexual experience, and beliefs about sex and disease prevention were measured during the intervention, and at three months, six months, and 12 months after the intervention ended. The results demonstrated that the teenagers who had been randomly assigned to RTR and RTR+ showed overall lower risk in their behavior and beliefs than the teenagers who had been assigned to the Control condition.

When the results from RTR and RTR+ were compared, overall RTR+ was considered to be more successful. RTR+, that included Fuzzy Trace Theory's emphasis on gist, was related to:
*a lower rate of students who started having sex during that 12 month period.
*the lowest increase in the number of sexual partners during that 12 month period.
*the smallest increase in positive attitude toward sex (thinking that having sex at this age is a good idea).
*the smallest increase in beliefs that parents and peers think sex was okay for them to experience at this age.
*the highest belief that they were at risk for generalized (take home message) risks associated with sex. This is a measure of gist thinking - so it is not surprising that the teens in RTR+ demonstrated more of this.
*the highest knowledge of sex related risks lasting up to six months after the intervention.
*the highest recognition of warning signals of sexual risk.

On the other hand, RTR, the original sexual education program, was related to:
*more favorable attitudes toward condom use during that 12 month period.
*more agreement with gist-based summaries of sexual risk as measured three months after the intervention. This is another measure of gist thinking - so it IS surprising that the teens in RTR demonstrated more of this

The results were further influenced when the participants' races were taken into account. Reyna and Mills compared results from the three most prominent groups represented in their sample: African American; Hispanic; and White. Curiously, the authors decided to add data from Asian participants into the category White because the responses from those groups were similar. So data reported in relation to White participants should be understood as White and Asian. However, an improvement to this study would have been to further diversify the sample so that Asian adolescents were properly represented.

How did race influence the results? For example, RTR+:
*initially improved African American participants' attitudes toward condoms, but that effect disappeared after the intervention was over.
*increased White participants' beliefs that they could successfully use condoms.
*was related to higher sexual risk knowledge for Hispanic and White teens.
*increased African American and White participants' belief that they were at risk for generalized (take home message) risks associated with sex. This is a measure of gist thinking - so it is not surprising that some teens in RTR+ demonstrated more of this. However, it is surprising that Hispanic participants did not demonstrate more of this in RTR+.

Race also influenced the results of the other intervention. For example, RTR:
*increased Hispanic and White participants' belief that parents and peers think condoms should be used when having sex.
*increased Hispanic and White participants' belief that they were at risk for generalized (take home message) risks associated with sex. This is a measure of gist thinking - so it IS surprising that some of the teens in RTR demonstrated more of this.

Taken together, the results suggest that including an emphasis on the gist of sex related risks could be a positive addition to sexuality education if we want to encourage teenagers to delay sexual experience and to use condoms to prevent infection. This statement is based on results that reached statistical significance, meaning that the differences between teens assigned to RTR and RTR+ were not simply due to chance.

Some of these differences seem substantial. For example, Reyna and Mills note that being enrolled in RTR+ was 84% more effective at delaying the start of sexual activity when compared to the Control condition. At the same time some the differences were often very small even though they reached statistical significance. For example, teens assigned to RTR+ had fewer sexual partners than teens assigned to the regular RTR program. This result seems less impressive when you read that the teens in RTR+ reported an average of  2.15 partners while the teens in RTR reported an average of 2.21. In terms of a practical difference that would be of interest to parents and educators, this is almost nothing: both groups had about two sexual partners during that year.

Another issue is that interventions need to be tailored to the characteristics of the audience to be effective. The influence of race in the present study is especially important to note because teenagers from different racial groups differ in: how old they are when they start having sex; their risk of pregnancy (or getting somebody pregnant); and their risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Reyna and Mills also acknowledge that further research needs to focus on how and why concepts from Fuzzy Trace Theory may impact the sexual behaviors and beliefs of adolescents from diverse backgrounds.

Further Reading:

The Reyna and Mills (2014) article can be accessed through your local college library.

Watch a lecture by Dr. Valerie Reyna (one of the authors of this week's article) on "Risky Decision Making in Adolescence." This talk, given at Cornell University, covers, "...developmental differences in the way adolescents make decisions and reviews her research regarding why adolescents perceive risks and benefits and yet take more risks."

If you are interested in decreasing adolescent pregnancy and STIs, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy website includes statistics (state and national) and an excellent comparison of effective programs aimed at decreasing these problems. 

BONUS: The Reyna and Mills (2014) article includes a particularly cringe-worthy example used in RTR (and RTR+) as a warning sign that, "...unsafe sex may be imminent...": "being alone with a significant other, lights low and soft music playing..." (p. 1631). As goofy as that might sound to a modern teenager, I suppose that we do have evidence of its truth from the classic 1955 Disney film, "Lady and the Tramp."

A+ for Responsive Parenting

It is no secret that parents and teachers impact children's lives. Some believe that their influences are distinct: parents are thought to take care of socializing children and teachers are assumed to be in charge of teaching kids academic skills. This somewhat crude meme illustrates this idea - but is it correct?

Could responding to your child's physical and emotional needs also influence his or her cognitive skills? A recent study by Bernier, Beauchamp, Carlson, and Lalonde (2015) supports this idea. The authors were interested if the type of attachment that children share with their mothers may relate to certain abilities that predict success in school.

You may recall that Mary Ainsworth and colleagues developed one way to study Attachment quality: briefly leaving toddlers in a Strange Situation and then reuniting them with their caregivers to observe how the children react. The majority of children got upset, but not hysterical, when left alone and were very glad when their caregiver returned: they ran to them; wanted to be held; and stopped crying almost immediately.

These children, like most American children, demonstrate a Secure Attachment relationship with their caregivers. This Secure style is associated with parents who notice when their children need something - physically or emotionally - and they respond to those needs in a prompt way. Children who share a Secure relationship learn to trust that their parents will come through for them.

In contrast, children may have an Insecure Avoidant relationship with parents who cannot be trusted to notice or take care of their needs. In this case the children don't want to be with the parents and do not rely on the parents for help.

Children can also share an Insecure Ambivalent relationship with parents who are unpredictable and unreliable at taking care of their needs. These children are always on edge because they don't know if today will be a good day or a bad day: they may be unusually clingy but also demonstrate a lot of anger toward their parents.

Finally, children raised in an abnormal environment of abuse and neglect, or by parents who are severely mentally ill, may just seem confused. This type of attachment relationship would be described as Insecure Disorganized.

We know that having a Secure Attachment relationship is associated with children demonstrating better social skills, emotional control, and improved behavior as they grow older. Bernier et al. hypothesized that this sort of attachment as a toddler would also be associated with better Executive Functioning skills during kindergarten. These Executive Functioning skills are largely regulated by the brain's prefrontal cortex and are very important for success in school. For example, relying on working memory, demonstrating the ability to plan and reach goals, and having control over your behavior are all requirements of kindergarten through college.

The authors considered 105 children who were tested at 15 months, two years, and when they were in kindergarten (age 5-6). At 15 months and age two, research assistants used a Q-Sort method to assess the attachment quality between the children and their mothers. The assistants came to each child's home and observed mother-child interactions. Based on those observations the assistants sorted 90 phrases into nine categories that ranged from "very unlike the child's behavior" to "very similar to the child's behavior." The resulting piles were compared with the piles we would expect from a Secure attachment relationship: if there was a strong match, the observed child would also have a Secure relationship with his or her mother. For example, children with Secure attachments would be rated as very similar to, "If held in mother's arms, child stops crying and quickly recovers after being frightened or upset," and rated as very unlike, "Child rarely asks mother for help" (p.1180).

At age 5 or 6, the same children were tested for general cognitive ability and specific Executive Functioning skills. General cognitive ability included an assessment with a delicious name, the Lollipop Test, which measures knowledge of colors and shapes, understanding of spatial relationships like "above" and "below," number knowledge, and letter knowledge.

Five assessments measured the children's Executive Functioning. Four of these directly tested the children's working memory, ability to follow rules, planning skills, and selective attention. Higher scores on these tests were associated with higher Executive Functioning skills. The children's kindergarten teachers completed the final assessment: they rated the children on 63 items related to problems with self-control, flexibility of thought, and metacognition (working memory combined with planning/organizational thinking). Thus, a low score on this rating was associated with higher Executive Functioning skills.

The results supported Bernier et al.'s hypothesis. Children who had earlier demonstrated Secure attachment relationships with their mothers scored higher on all of the Executive Functioning tests and received lower scores from teachers on problems with Executive Functioning. In other words, children whose parents had been responsive to their physical and emotional needs early in life were more likely to become kindergarten students with strong Executive Functioning skills. These skills in turn predict higher school success for these children.

Moreover, having a history of a Secure attachment was better at predicting good Executive Functioning skills than other factors known to have such influence. For example, attachment style predicted Executive Functioning skills better than predictions based on children's general cognitive ability scores. Likewise, attachment style's predictive powers trumped the children's ages, their families' income and education levels, and the amount of weeks that they had spent in kindergarten.

Although we cannot take these correlational results to mean that being a responsive parent or sharing a Secure Attachment relationship causes children to be primed for school success, they do imply that these things are likely to hang together. Returning to our meme, this research suggests that it is not solely the teacher's actions that will help children in school. If children are successful with the demands of kindergarten we can infer that they likely have a history of parents who wiped their noses, soothed their fears, and helped them regulate their emotions.

Further Reading:

The Bernier et al. (2015) journal article in Developmental Psychology can be accessed through your local college library.

If you are concerned that a child in your life has problems with Executive Functioning skills. Here is a resource from Understood.org: Understanding Executive Functioning Issues.

The Extension office at Purdue University offers concrete examples of parenting that are associated with Secure and Insecure Attachment relationships. The good news is that Insecure relationships can become Secure ones if parents change their behaviors.

Worst Case Scenario Moms

For most of us, when we make plans we take into consideration a small number of logical problems that might occur. In this case, a little bit of anxiety helps us make logical choices to keep ourselves safe. For example, if you are planning a road trip it is a good idea to use Google maps or your GPS to navigate without getting lost. 

For some individuals who struggle with anxiety that list of possible problems would not only be lengthy, it might also include some very unlikely and illogical problems. For example, if the weather report predicts sunny skies and you are very worried about a million things - including that you will have to drive through massive thunderstorms - this is probably a sign of an anxiety disorder. Even worse, when your friend tells you that you don't need to worry, you are still convinced that your concern is based in reality.

Our meme uses a good key word to help you understand one aspect of anxiety disorders:  catastrophically. Catastrophic thinking is a cognitive bias that is associated with anxiety disorders. It causes people to generate and fear many possible, even if unlikely, worst case scenarios. This might lead a person who fails one exam to believe, "I am going to fail out of school and be homeless;" a person who has a sore throat would think, "I am going to die from throat cancer;" and a person going through a break-up could fear, "I am going to die alone because nobody will ever want me."

In addition to worrying about themselves, people who are very anxious may also worry about catastrophes that could occur in others' lives. Based on this, Lester, Field, & Cartwright-Hatton (2012) wanted to clarify the relationship between anxiety and catastrophic thinking as they relate to mothers. This is very sensible as parents are charged with protecting their children from harm and teaching children how to be careful: all parents are expected to envision what could go wrong for their kids. 
 

 

As well, we know that anxiety disorders are caused by an interplay of genetic and environmental influences. If parents model catastrophic thinking it may be that their children will start to have the same cognitive bias.

In the study, 300 English mothers of elementary school children were tested for their baseline level of anxiety, or trait anxiety. Overall, they were not particularly anxious - only 5% or so were anxious enough to meet the criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder - but there were some moms who scored higher than others.

Next, the mothers were interviewed to measure their tendencies toward catastrophic thinking, or catastrophic processing. Almost 200 of the moms were asked to imagine that a person doing something dangerous was their own child; about 100 of the moms were instead asked to imagine themselves as the person doing the dangerous thing. For example (p. 759), the participants were asked to imagine their child or themselves as the man standing atop this high column.

They were then asked to state what worried them about that situation. The interviewer continued with follow-up questions based on these answers to generate a list of possible worst case scenarios. The mothers who came up with more of these had a larger bias toward catastrophic thinking.

All of the mothers participated in another test to see if they were simply biased to see danger in general. They read 20 descriptions of ambiguous situations - situations that could be interpreted as being dangerous or safe. Examples are not given in the Lester at al. article, but I can imagine a situation like, "Walking alone to a friend's house." Half of the situations were described as applying to them (my version: "You are walking alone to a friend's house....") and the other half were described as applying to the participants' children (my version: "Your child is walking alone to a friend's house....").

Bias toward seeing danger was assessed through a test of recognition memory. Recognition memory is what you use to complete multiple choice exams: you simply pick out the choice that matches what you remember. In this case the mothers' memories for the 20 situations were tested: for each one they had to choose between a version that was dangerous and a version that was safe. So if we use my made-up example of "walking alone to a friend's house" the choices might include:

a) ...walking alone to a friend's house and a man jumps out of a car with a knife...

b) ...walking alone to a friend's house and a rabbit jumps out from behind a bush...

Having a bias toward seeing danger would lead participants to choose the memory that depicted a threat as the correct answer.

The results confirmed that mothers who are higher in trait anxiety generated more possible worst case scenarios: anxious mothers were more likely to demonstrate catastrophic thinking. This was equally true regardless if they were asked to envision outcomes for their children or for themselves. This suggests that anxious mothers may generalize their own anxiety to their children's experiences.

Likewise, Lester et al. found that mothers who are higher in trait anxiety were more likely to remember ambiguous situations as including threats: they were biased to see danger. This was especially true when they were asked to imagine themselves in those ambiguous situations; it was true to a lesser extent when they were asked to imagine their children in the situations. Some further analyses led to the suggestion that higher trait anxiety leads to a bias of seeing danger as it might affect you personally; this self-directed bias in turn increases your likelihood to imagine danger for your child.

Lester at al. were careful to point out that their methods do not allow them to state that these biases cause children of anxious parents to become anxious themselves. However they raise the possibility that kids could be at risk of anxiety if they grow up with parents who engage in catastrophic thinking and who are led to envision danger in their children's lives. The authors also offer another possibility based on their results: parents of anxious children may develop these cognitive biases, such as catastrophic thinking, as a result of raising their fearful offspring. Talk about an ambiguous situation!

Further Reading:

The Lester et al. (2012) article can be accessed through your local college library.

For a humorous look at worst case scenarios and parenting, try this book by Piven, Borgenicht, & Jordan (2003). You can find an excerpt from the chapter on "long car journeys" here.

If you are concerned about your anxiety or the anxiety of your mother a loved one, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America offers good information on treatment. This includes a podcast about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a common treatment to combat irrational thoughts, including a bias toward catastrophic thinking.

Speaking French in German Class: non -- nein!

In college I double majored in Psychology and French, so I am fluent in French to this day. A few years ago my family and I spent a year in Denmark so I started to learn Danish. To my horror when I would try to speak Danish, French words would pop into my mind. More recently, I have been learning German. It is so frustrating to only find Danish words when I am searching my brain for German vocabulary! If you have ever tried to learn a foreign language this week's meme should be relatable:

If we assume that the Most Interesting Man in the World learned French first and it is making German hard for him to learn, then this is an example of proactive interference. Proactive interference is the situation when prior knowledge interrupts the learning of new information.

How can we overcome this? Past research suggests that people learning a second language have to inhibit their original languages to produce the new one. So my stories and our meme represent failures in this inhibition. 

An article by Declerck, Thoma, Koch, and Philipp (2015) supports the idea that people who are fluent in multiple languages also must use inhibition. Declerck et al. tested 18 German young adults who grew up speaking both Turkish and German as part of their everyday lives. These individuals also started to learn English in school around age ten, so they were fluent in this third language, although these skills were not as strong as their Turkish and German abilities.

In their experiment, the participants were shown slides depicting a number (1-9) and a symbol. If they saw a square they should say the number in Turkish; if they saw a diamond they should say the number in German; if they saw a triangle they should say the number in English. Each participant experienced 107 trials of this test. For some trials two cued languages alternated in sets of three (for example, German-Turkish-German) and for an equal amount of trials all three of the the cued languages cycled in sets of three (for example, German-Turkish-English). For all trials the speed and accuracy of the answers were recorded: a longer hesitation before saying the number indicated more inhibition of the previously cued language. 

Participants hesitated milliseconds more when two cued languages alternated, as compared to when all three cued languages cycled. This finding supports past research: alternating back and forth between two languages is most likely to increase the difficulty of suppressing one of the languages when using the other. This difficulty increases the response time.

All three languages created these tiny delays for speaking the next cued language, but the participants' dominant languages, Turkish and German, did this more than English. This also supports the idea of inhibition: a language that is stronger in your mind will take more effort to suppress which will slow down your response.

On the other hand, participants were most accurate in naming the numbers when cued to do so in English. In this case more mistakes were made when they had to speak their two strongest languages! The authors explain this counter-intuitive finding by pointing out that a person who is very strong in two languages (Turkish and German) will likely view this experiment as a test of the language that has weaker fluency (English). It is as if the participants were not so worried about being accurate in Turkish or German because those are easy-peasy for them; instead they were worried about goofing up in English so they tried harder when English was cued. This activation of English would decrease response time and also increase accuracy of naming numbers in that language.

This should make us all of us aspiring polyglots feel better. For second-language learners, don't be too hard on yourself if words from your native language pop out of your mouth in a foreign language class. This is just a problem of proactive interference and a failure of inhibition. For multilingual people, don't feel bad if you catch yourself hesitating ever so slightly as you switch between your languages. This only shows that your brain is working hard to inhibit the languages that you don't need at that moment. Moreover, the situation is going to play a role by activating a specific language which should increase your accuracy.

Further Reading:

You can access the Declerck et al. (2015) article at your local college library.

If you feel inspired to brush up on an old language or to learn a new one, two FREE apps that use cognitive psychological research for language learning are Memrise and Duolingo.

A Radiolab episode on Translation. Featuring Indiana University's Dr. Douglas Hofstadter attempts to translate a French poem into English, and other examples of how ideas can get lost, or changed, in translation.

Apparently you can gossip about babies and the elderly.

We have all been in a noisy situation - the school cafeteria, a party, waiting for a meeting to start - when in the middle of your conversation with one person, you suddenly hear your name mentioned by somebody across the room. Maybe you looked like this when it happened:

The first part of this scenario describes the "cocktail party effect": it is really amazing that we can use selective listening to tune out background voices and concentrate on our conversation. This effect was first studied by Cherry (1953) who found that this sort of listening is easier when the voices appear to be located in different places like you would experience in social situations. In the laboratory this could be mimicked by a dichotic listening task: while wearing headphones, the background conversation would be heard in one ear while the participant is asked to focus on a voice heard in their other ear. If, instead, all voices come from the same location this becomes much more difficult. The laboratory equivalent would be having all voices streamed into both sides of headphones.

The second part of the scenario and this week's meme illustrate later work done by Moray in 1959. Usually in dichotic listening tasks the participants are pretty good at repeating what they are instructed to listen to and are barely aware of what is being streamed into the other ear. Moray found an exception to this: many people are able to notice when their names are mentioned in the background speech that they have been instructed to ignore. Later research suggests that this is particularly true of people who are easily distracted and have poor working memories.

Some modern studies show us when the response to our name may develop and when this response may decline. To start, Newman (2005) performed a series of studies to determine the age at which babies start to pick out their names from background speech. Babies sat on their parents' laps and listened to a recording of three women speaking: throughout the entire recording one voice read passages from books; at the same time babies would hear a second voice saying their individual names alternating with a third voice saying similar names. This recording came out of a loudspeaker next to a red light that would go on when names were mentioned: so the red light served as the single "source" of the voices. Newman could tell if the babies were noticing a name if they looked at the red light when it was layered over the book passage.

She found that babies as young as five months showed some ability to pick out their names. This was because they looked at the light slightly longer when their names were overlaid, but only when their names were 10 decibels louder than the words from the book passage. Newman then demonstrated that it is around age one that young children no longer require their names to be that much louder than background speech to notice them. So this ability appears to develop in the first year of life, then is further honed up to adult ability.

Switching to the other end of the lifespan, Naveh-Benjamin, Maddox, Kilb, Thomas, Fine, Chen, and Cowan (2014) performed a series of studies comparing young adults to senior citizens on a dichotic listening task. Both age-groups were instructed to listen to the words streamed into one ear and to ignore that background words that were streamed into the other ear. (Although I doubt that any of them looked as cool wearing their headphones as Ruth Flowers did DJ'ing at age 72).

Naveh-Benjamin et al. wondered if older adults, who usually have poorer working memories due to aging, would perform like young adults who have poor working memories? Specifically: would they be more likely to notice when their names are mentioned in background speech that they are told to ignore? The results were surprising: in several variations of the study senior citizens were consistently less likely than poor-memory young adults to notice their names in these background words. In fact, they noticed their names less than even the high-memory young adults! This trend was not influenced by the older participants' individual working memory abilities, which ear the background speech was streamed into, or how quickly any of the words were paced.

Even more striking was the finding that the seniors showed very little notice of their names even when the task was changed so that they were instructed to listen to the recording that contained their names and ignore the speech streaming into the other ear! No wonder the title of this research article is, "Older adults do not notice their names..."!

Taken together, these studies suggest that our tendency to tune out or tune in is related to a number of cognitive processes. Newman suggested that infants may develop these abilities as their understanding of speech as a tool and their ability to selectively listen increase. Naveh-Benjamin et al. emphasized that they cannot determine what caused their results but they wagered that dichotic listening tasks require more brain power from older adults to concentrate on one thing and ignore another. So this extra "effort" may have produced their results. Clearly further research is required.

On a lighter note, if you are at a noisy party and gossiping about a person who is across the room - you are probably not going to get caught if that person is a baby or a senior citizen! But hopefully you will have more tact than Jerry and Elaine on "Seinfeld".

Further Reading:

The Newman (2005) and the Naveh-Benjamin et al. (2014) articles can be accessed at your local college library.

Here is a great article on the neuroscience behind the cocktail party effect by Golumbic et al. (2014).

 A "Psychology Today" blog post by Liane Davey on ending the negative gossip habit.